Fatality

25 years ago - Yrra Cynril is born, the princess of the planet Xanshi.

14 years ago - 11-year-old Yrra goes to study under the warlords of Okaara, where she meets the princesses of Tamaran, Komand'r & Koriand'r

10 years ago - 15-year-old Yrra is the lone survivor of the destruction of Xanshi. She learns that John Stewart is responsible and flees to deep space to escape the reach of the Green Lantern Corps, unaware that the act was actually performed by the Manhunters. She begins her advanced combat training under the darkspace warlords.

5 years ago - 20-year-old Yrra pursues the last surviving Lantern to Earth, and attacks Kyle Rayner. To protect John Stewart, he leads her back out into space, and has to battle her without his ring, managing to barely survive.

4 years ago - 21-year-old Yrra finds her way into occupied Qwardian space and steals her own anti-oan power ring from the Weaponers of Qward. She returns to Earth to attack John Stewart, but he finally is able to convince her of his innocence. her ring finds it's way to Alexander Nero.

Comics are full of characters that are written for singular story arcs. Writers are then tasked to either repurpose that character to continue their story, or to essentially retell that same story for later readers. I imagine that every comic book reader has their own list of favorite versions of this style of character. Personally, i'm guessing it has a lot to do with when I started reading comics, because a lot of my personal list comes from the mid-nineties. Fatality is a great example of this sort of thing; she's a fantastic one-off villain from a particular era of comics that continues to stand out as a great creation to this day.

Fatality's Comic History

Fatality debuted in 1997 in Green Lantern Vol 3 #83, 33 issues after Kyle Rayner debuted as the new lone Green Lantern. This would put her at just about three years into Ron Marz's run on the book, coincidentally one of my favorite long runs on a single comic book character. Marz had really found a fantastic chemistry with Kyle Rayner, building a story out of the remains of the at-that-point decimated Green Lantern Corps while also continually using his new, young hero as a way to explore just what being a superhero means.

Fatality was a completely new character, but she tied into the legacy of the Green Lanterns beautifully. She had been killing Green Lanterns on a mission of revenge, and was now targeting Kyle as the last of their kind. The story culminated in Kyle having to face her without his power ring on an alien planet, a really great way to show his development as a hero. Fatality would later come back armed with one of Sinestro's Anti-Oan rings. Of course once the Green Lantern Corps was rebuilt and the multi-color lantern corps were introduced she was an early recruit, first into Sinestro's Yellow Corps but then later in the Star Sapphires.

Our Fatality Story

Fatality clicks cleanly into so many stories, tying a lot of cool characters together. It's actually part of existing continuity that she was trained by the Warlords of Okaara, which means that she would have met Starfire and her sister Blackfire. The destruction of her planet by the Manhunters is a huge part of her story, but including that element actually does so much to flesh out John Stewart's story, the Manhunters... even the relationship between the Citadel and Starfire's home planet of Tamaran.

We did want to do a little work in her first appearance to make sure that John Stewart continues to be an important part of the story, because Kyle would have extra incentive to take Fatality off-planet to protect a powerless John. In the comics she actually goes on to have a relationship with John once it's proven that he isn't to blame for the destruction of her planet. While we didn't take it that way in out story, we did make sure to establish that they are still in contact with each other. This gives us a cool option for John; even though he is depowered and can't help in the mission to relight the Oan Power Battery he can still assist in that story by calling in Fatality as his ally. The idea of Fatality joining that fight is really cool.

Fatality's Future

As of the end of our timeline the last we've seen of Fatality is her involvement in the battle against Sinestro's forces to help to reignite the Oan Power Battery. It's a big deal that this warrior, who has dedicated herself to the destruction of the Green Lanterns, would do such a complete turnaround and help them begin again. When you have a character whose motivation is built on misinformation, though, it's really only a matter of time before that motivation gets taken from them.

Once Fatality knows the truth, she's really open to almost any story a person might want to tell with her. She has an unmistakably fantastic look, and there is always a place somewhere to use a new character of color. So what are we going to do with her?

Honestly, I'm not sure at the moment. There is a major story coming in the world of space-based characters as Lady Styx attacks, and Fatality has training from a lot of the warlords that occupy deep space where Styx's armies are amassing, so she's very likely going to have a role in that story. Going ahead from there, however, the possibilities are huge.